Pete Baldock obituary

Pete Baldock worked with charities focused on early years care and education

For most of his life, my friend Pete Baldock, who has died of cancer aged 67, was a community worker in Sheffield. He ended his career as a senior manager in Ofsted's early years directorate. Pete could have enjoyed a distinguished university career in several subject areas, and was more than once headhunted for such posts. That he chose to work in the unglamorous local authority social service sector came as no surprise to those who knew him as a man committed to helping those members of society who are too often ignored.

His colleagues have remarked upon the engagement, professionalism and warmth with which he greeted their problems. A committed trade union official, he was determined that his members should understand the detail of negotiations affecting them.

Pete was widely known not only within Sheffield, where he lived and worked, but well beyond its boundaries. Born in London, he was of that first generation which grew up under a national health service and with an education free at all levels. Without those benefits, it is unlikely that Pete could have attended grammar school – which he did, in Islington.

He gained a scholarship to study modern history at Oxford University, where he achieved a first-class degree. He later went to Sheffield University and gained a doctorate for his thesis on the tenants' movements in the city.

After retirement, Pete worked with charities focused on early years care and education and continued writing on these subjects. He was polishing his final contribution (due out in 2012) when he was taken into hospital for the last time.

He is survived by his wife, Cath, whom he married in 1968, his daughters, Anna and Emily, his grandchildren, and a large extended family, all of whom he adored.

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